Thank you again from the bottom of my heart for all your wonderful reviews! Sorry for the wait. I had some trouble finding motivation for this chapter. Special Thanks to nattylovesjordy for the great chat and for helping me find new inspiration which helped kick my rear into gear to finally finish this chapter!

And again, to those of you with medical backgrounds, I apologize if I'm off with some stuff. Constructive criticism is appreciated. Also, I have a great respect for physicians of any kind; I just felt I needed someone Jordan could vent her anger to, hence the jerk of a surgeon.

Disclaimer –I don't own 'em (though I would've treated them a heck of a lot better!) It's just for fun and to keep the memory alive. Please R&R! Thanks for reading!

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Chapter Three – Waiting

Jordan paced the hallway of Boston General's surgical ward, much like she had all those months ago when Woody was shot. It had been 3 hours since the chopper had brought Garret in and she still hadn't heard a word from his surgeon. Everything had happened so fast, she still wasn't sure she was grasping all the information given to her. The doctor in her understood the severity of Garret's injuries, but the friend in her couldn't comprehend how bad his situation could really end up being.

So she waited. And she paced. And she waited some more. The nurses had tried to joke with her about wearing a path in the floor, but she barely heard them. Her mind was too busy trying to sort out all the little details she had to remember.

She hadn't been able to get in touch with Abby or Maggie. She'd left an urgent message for Renee, whom she'd been told was in court. She's spoken briefly to Lily. She'd managed not to break down even as she listened to Lily cry on the other end of the line. She'd been able to tell Lily what had happened; that Bug was fine and on the second chopper, not with her at the hospital. Madeline was sleeping, so Jordan told Lily to meet her at the hospital in a couple hours; hopefully in time to greet Bug and the others. She'd phoned the morgue and told Emy what had happened. She asked Emy to pass along the information to the other employees. She'd phoned BPD and relayed all the information to Woody's captain. He said he would let Woody's co-workers know, and asked that Woody please call him when the chopper landed; he wanted to speak with Woody personally.

Now all she could do was wait. And pace. And wait some more.

She silently cursed the doctor for not sending her word of how Garret's surgery was going. To know he was still alive would have been a relief at this point. She didn't want to tell Abby and Maggie and Renee and Lily she didn't have any information. And she wanted something to pass along to her friends when they arrived in the second helicopter.

She reached for her cell phone for what seemed like the hundredth time before she remembered it was lost somewhere on the mountain.

"Crap," she swore under her breath. She vaguely wondered again where the second chopper was and why she hadn't seen her friends. She clenched and unclenched her fists, wishing her hands had something to do other than get tangled in her hair. She could feel her control starting to slip. She stopped moving and leaned her forehead against the coolness of the hospital wall. She concentrated on taking slow, deep breaths, and willed her knees not to turn to jelly. Come on Cavanaugh, you've been through worse than this and held it together, she scolded herself. She shoved her hands into her hair and let the anger wash over her. That's right, get mad. Mad keeps you going. Mad makes you think things through. Mad keeps you rational. Mad doesn't let you break down and cry like a baby.

She was still talking herself into her anger when Lily found her moments later.

"Jordan!" she called.

Jordan's head snapped up at the sound of her name. She turned to see Lily running down the hospital hallway towards her. She pushed herself away from the wall and wrapped her arms around her friend. Lily grabbed her and held on for dear life. Finally, she let Jordan go then sat in the nearest chair, hoping Jordan would take it as a sign she could sit and relax for a moment.

Jordan sat. She felt Lily wrap her fingers around hers and squeeze her hand gently.

"He crashed, Lily. He crashed in the E.R." Her voice trembled; she stopped, took a breath and continued on.

"He was fine during the flight. His vitals were good; they thought his bleed had slowed enough to allow for more tests. And then they moved him. Started prepping for ultrasounds and surgery and bang his stats bottomed out and he stopped breathing. They almost had to shock him."

She closed her eyes, swallowed hard to steady her voice. "They asked me to leave the room, and the next thing I know he's heading for surgery. They wouldn't let me talk to him. The surgeon said he'd be in to talk to me when it was over. I haven't seen anyone since, and it's been almost four hours."

She felt Lily's hand tighten around hers. She opened her eyes and pulled out the yellow piece of paper and showed the crumpled ball to Lily. "He told me to hang on to this. Only look at it if something went wrong. I don't know whether I should be reading it or not."

Lily glanced at the paper; felt fingers of fear dance along her spine.

"No. Not now. Only if something goes wrong. And as far as we know, nothing has gone wrong, right? No news is good news?" Lily squeezed her hand again, and Jordan knew her friend was having a hard time convincing herself of her own words.

Jordan nodded. She tried to tell herself she was never going to have to relay what ever information was written on that paper to Garret's friends and family.

She sighed, leaned back in her chair, looking at Lily from the corner of her eye. She sat up again suddenly. "Lily, where's Madeline?"

Lily's eyes grew wide with shock for a moment and then she let out a squeak of laughter. "I left her with Emy and the staff at the morgue. They offered to watch her for a couple hours while I came here. God, I almost forgot where I left my daughter!"

Jordan knew she shouldn't be laughing at something so serious, but she couldn't help it. All the sleepless hours and the stress of the situation finally took its toll and she dissolved in a fit of giggles. Lily smiled at her friend, happy she was relaxing a little, but also knowing all to well the first signs of the trauma that was catching up with Jordan. She'd gone through the same motions when the terrorists had bombed the lawyers' offices four years ago.

"Why don't you close your eyes, try and get some rest, Jordan. I'll be right here. I'll wake you if the doctor comes out."

Jordan looked at her is if she were crazy then sighed.

"Yeah, I guess I could lie down for a minute. You promise to wake me if I fall asleep? And I want to talk to that damned surgeon if you see him stroll by here. Name's Roberts." She waited for Lily to nod her agreement, then got up and moved across the hall to a lumpy looking loveseat. Without another word, Jordan curled her long frame as best she could onto the couch, closed her eyes and let her mind drift away.

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Lily watched as Jordan's face slowly relaxed into sleep. She was surprised when Jordan agreed to lie down; she fully expected to have to use some kind of force or threat to get her to relax for a few minutes. She glanced at her watch, noting the amount of time she'd been there, and reminding herself what time she needed to leave to pick up Madeline. She checked her cell phone again for any voice messages from the morgue, and, satisfied that all was well for the moment, sat back and picked up a magazine from the table beside her chair.

She flipped through the pages, settled on an article about Hollywood moms and their babies. She glanced idly at the words, realized vaguely how cute the babies were then tossed the magazine aside in frustration. Trying to focus was pointless. She was concerned about Garret, but knew that with injuries that extensive his surgery was bound to be long. And she was beginning to worry about Bug and the rest of her friends. Jordan had told her almost five hours ago that the second chopper would be at the hospital soon. Still they had no word on where it was or when it was coming in. And Lily didn't have the first clue who to talk to to get that information.

She thought of Bug; wondered if he was as scared as she. Her mind flipped back to the moment Emy had phoned her with the news the plane had gone off the radar. She hadn't panicked until she'd learned it was lost over the White Mountains. Then, with speed and efficiency she hadn't known she possessed, she packed up Madeline and the diaper bag, loaded them in her car and sped as safely as she could to the morgue to await further news of her friends' fate.

She'd wandered the halls of the eerily silent morgue, Madeline in her arms, tears threatening to spill down her cheeks. She'd stopped at each of her friends' desks, willing her mind to remember a happy or funny moment she'd shared with each of them. She'd finally ended up in the lunch room, where so many memories, good and not, had taken place. She'd closed her eyes, letting the tears fall as her grief and worry washed over her. Finally she'd moved to Garret's office, as it was the quietest, and set up Madeline's playpen. She rocked her baby girl in her arms, telling her how much her daddy loved her and missed her, and when Madeline closed her eyes, she put the sleeping infant down inside her temporary bed and covered her with her favourite blanket. She swallowed the tears that caught in her throat as she performed the same task Bug had, night after night. She told herself he'd soon be home to continue the bedtime tradition with his daughter. When she was sure Madeline had settled into sleep, she flopped onto the couch, then pulled a blanket over herself and drifted into a fitful sleep.

She'd stayed at the morgue, sleeping on Garret's couch, awaiting news of her friends, for three days. She'd gone home only for a shower and to get more supplies for Madeline.

She remembered walking into the lobby of the morgue that morning, seeing Emy's face, and knowing that her friends had been found. Her joy was short lived however, when Emy told her she didn't have any information about whether there were survivors. So she took her baby girl, and went back to Garret's office, where she could try and sort out her thoughts and come to terms with the fact that Bug and the others may not be coming back to her after all. She'd stayed there, like that, all morning, until the ringing of her cell phone startled her back to life. Her heart pounded with fear at the sight of 'Boston General' on her call display. She thought briefly of not answering the call then told her self it was better to know, regardless of what the news was. She'd nearly passed out with relief when she heard Jordan's voice. Instead, she'd burst into tears, and had to struggle for control as she listened to Jordan relay the information she'd been so desperately waiting to hear.

She barely remembered Emy coming into Garret's office and offering to stay with Madeline. The drive to the hospital was a little clearer; she'd told herself to stay focused on the road. Her friends didn't need to arrive home only to discover she'd been hurt trying to get to them. She didn't think she'd ever been so happy to see anyone as she was to see Jordan pacing the hallways of Boston General's surgical ward.

She shook herself out of her reverie, then got up from her chair and began to pace the same path Jordan had been pacing not too long ago. She told herself she wasn't pacing, just moving to keep her blood flowing and her mind alert, then laughed at herself. Who was she trying to kid? She'd done this same thing when her mother had been in the hospital. She'd been sick with worry then, just as she was now, only then the outcome had been anything but happy. . . .

She told herself history was not going to repeat itself. Her friends were going to be fine. Just fine.

They had to be.